As conventional fuel costs soar, alternative fuel sources are being sought. One such source, solar energy, is becoming increasingly developed because of its cleanliness and abundance. In addition, solar energy can be harnessed for a variety of tasks, including water and space heating. However, one drawback has been the expense of conversion to solar heat as compared to its perceived economic savings.
Many types of solar heating devices have been made to capture the sun's energy. One such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,282 to Schriefer. In Schriefer, a solar collector includes a matrix of plural layers of slit-and-expanded sheets to collect and retain the solar heat energy that penetrates through a transparent panel on the front of the collector. Another device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,202,319. The '319 patent discloses a building roof wherein a plurality of tile-like solar heat collectors are mounted on the roof.
Many of the prior art solar collector systems use solar collector units which are discrete from the roof structure itself. Such solar collector units must form the entire heat exchange chamber, i.e., must have an absorbing panel encased by at least one transparent wall and enclosing walls to form a sealed chamber. From a material standpoint, such solar collector units are relatively expensive. When a large number of collector units are required to meet the heating needs of a particular application, the cost of installing a solar heating system with such collector units rises further. The present invention was developed to reduce the cost of converting a building to solar heat by utilizing a portion of the roof structure as part of the solar collector units.